Eggs, Eggs and more Eggs

I am quickly learning the ropes of the omelette station. When I first started, I could not do an egg over easy without breaking the yolk, now I can have three double pans going at once, with customers watching, flipping them and not breaking or burning any of them. It is a pretty good feeling.

I make perfect omelettes now. Lay in the ingredients the customer picks out, sauté them up, laddle in the egg, swirl it around so that maximum surface is used, use a spatula to push the cooked egg down to make a bit of an edge, let it set for a moment or two, and flip it. The flip gets a lovely "oooh" from most guests, then I put on their cheese of choice, and fold it onto their plate.

Meals in 44 North

My aunt and uncle came up yesterday, and we all went out for lunch and diner.
Lunch was as Estias, which is a greek restaurant in the heart of downtown, not more than a ten minute walk from my house. I love it there, and I am addicted to their Paninis.

For supper, we went to 44 North. I have yet to eat here, as during our staff stay at the hotel, it was closed due to a function, and Chris and I ate at Fife and Drum instead.

My aunt, Susan, had a lobster diner. Which was interesting, as usually she eats it at home, never orders it. Watching her pick at it, very carefully, was a good time. I must admit I got hit by a few stray pieces of lobster meat.
My uncle, Jeff, ordered French Onion Soup and a burger. We made fun of him for the burger choice, though he said it was wonderful. But he simply raved over the soup.
Chris ordered the Salmon, and I order the Bass as I have never had bass before. I must say it was delicious, not quite what I expected it to taste like, but wonderful none the less. It had a pineapple chutney on top, which was amazing.

For dessert both couples shared a Blueberry Grunt of course, because the whole meal Chris went on and on about how delicious it was. I really should try and make some of it at home.

Moving Around

I spoke to Chef awhile ago, about getting the opportunity to move around into different components of the kitchen.
Well the past two weeks have been just that.
My shifts in 44 North breakfast have been so wonderful. I work the omelette station, and as I have previously discovered, I love being in contact with the guests and customers. I love hearing where they are going on vacation, and I enjoy showing off a bit in front of them. By day two I was able to flip and catch and omelette in the air which usually got a nice "ooooh" and "aaahhh" out of the guests.
The most exciting thing that happened is that I got to speak some German! There was this woman and her husband who came up to order an omelette. They had a son, who was about 8 years old. I noticed he was talking to his mom, and then she was trying to translate - poorly - what he was saying into English. So I just casually asked the boy what he wanted - in German. the reactions on the parents face was awesome, and we quickly fell into a conversation asking how I learned German. I found out they lived not 20 minutes from where I was, which is why the dialect was so close.

I also had my evening 44 North shift which was a bit stressful I will admit. A nice sort of stress, that quickly turned into a bad sort of stress. I had no idea what I was doing, I did not know their menu at all, not even what each plate was supposed to look like in the end. As each of the chips where coming through, I was trying to figure out what they said, and even if it was my responsibility. As I was doing Pantry. Therefore salads and sandwiches and the like. Well a beet salad is grill though, as it is a hot beet salad. Little things like that, all quickly added up for a stressful night. The walk-in was used as a cool down room, for me to gather my thoughts and get ready for the next rush.

Working in the Fife and Drum is a bit of fun, though the kitchen is cramped, and the menu doesn't allow for a whole lot of cooking. It's mostly nachos and potato skins. It was incredibly warm in that kitchen, but the waitresses are nice, the customers are more patient, and it is a fair bit slower, so we have time to get prep done, and keep a tidy, tiny, organized kitchen.

I also learned how to make beer battered fish, and blueberry grunt which has turned into my boyfriends favourite dessert. He had it when we went to Fife and Drum, and again when we went to 44 North.

All in all, I enjoyed working in my different stations.

Wedding Action Stations

July 23

My chef is a very observant and caring man. A week ago I went to him explaining that I would like a few shifts in different areas of the kitchen. As much fun as Garde Manger is, I am quickly growing bored of it. As well as I don't feel that I am making any more progress. Though my knife skills have significantly improved, which was one of the key things I wanted to work on during this internship. I feel much more confident when I am handling a knife. So after this talk with Chef I found my schedule this week in many different areas, including hot side, carving/action station, 44 North Breakfast and diner as well as a Fife and Drum pub shift. So far I have completed my carving/action station shift. This was a lot of fun, and I really realized how much I enjoy interacting with the guests. For my station, I had a whipped potato bar, this was at a fancy, large, Lebanese wedding. There must have been over 300 guests. I served up over one full hotel pan full of whipped potatoes in the course of 3 hours.
Another story to testify to Chef's observance: chef Brian has this oyster shucker that we all love very much. Whenever we need to shuck oysters, we borrow his tool. Well this week Chef came into the kitchen, with a big bag. Inside were oyster shuckers, all identical to Chef Brian's. We all got one as a gift - which is perfect as I was just about to go out and buy one.

Hot Side

July 23

I had my first shift over on Hot Side. It was a 10am - 1pm and somehow felt about 3 hours long. i was the only one in until 1pm except for Jr. Sous chef Dorothy. She was filling in for Dalpat, who had fallen off a ladder and was out of work for at least 3 weeks. I had a function for 20 people that went out at noon, though everything for it was already prepped and I just had to cook it all off. 12 minutes for the rice and 12 minutes for the chicken Souvlaki. I got that all done - and dropped half a hotel pan of rice - and went over to 44 North to see if they needed any help. I noticed Mark was swamped and I helped him with his prep work, which consisted of 2 buckets of chopped Romaine and Artisan Lettuce.

Reduced Hours

July 23

Last Shift I worked, I was notified that the busy part of the summer was just about over, and it won't be pick up again until late august or September. Possibly even until October. This news is slightly stressing me out, as I want to catch all of my hours before the beginning of September if at all possible. As my Sublet in my apartment is over at the end of August. the past two weeks worked out to 22 hours each. This will be a bit more of a problem if it doesn't pick up, seeing as at this rate I will need 7 more weeks to get all of my internship hours. I will see how this week works out and will do my best to not get sent home early at all. Otherwise I will have to have another sit down with Chef.

Donald's lessons of "S#!& you don't learn in school" Part 2

I had the chance to have a slow day, and be able to work directly under our first cook, Donald.
I finished up all my work in the Garde Manger section, and went over to ask Donald if he needed any help. He gave me some veg to chop up as we were going to make a mire poix.

I learned how to keep a demi-glace from tasting burnt and bitter. Donald showed me how to cut the right corners, and which corners are there for a reason, and should not be changed.

Extravagant VIP

I left my camera with one of the banquet servers, so you can finally see the end product!
This was a rather intense display, with King Crab legs, smoked scallops, steamed shrimp, oysters, sausages, deli meats, smoked meats, olives, house made cranberry crisps, crustini, rolls, roasted garlic spread, whipped butter, cloudfruit compot.

There were 22 people and we made 3 of these displays.

Can anyone properly guess how much this cost?

44 North

I finally had my first 44 North shift. And I must say I absolutely love it!
It's the pace that I have been craving for, having orders coming in, and needing to fill them out as quick as possible. Even though it was just a Pantry shift, it was still wonderful.

Ronnia would be taking me under her wing today.

When I first arrived, I was to make up a few Parfaits for Starbucks, which is located in our lobby. This was easy enough, and once I was done I moved onto preparing mixed berry cups. These are used for room service and dining room. In the morning we do up an insert worth of them, and this way they are always ready to go.

After that was done, I did some sheets of bacon, that would be used the next day for breakfast, sandwiches and salads.

Prep work was done when the morning was slow, but once we hit a rush, everything was dropped to get food out as quickly as possible.

My work area was small, but I welcome the tight spaces, everything was organized and within reach, and even the rush flowed smoothly. Everything had a backup waiting for it, so there were no last minute panicking. If we only had a side salad on our order, we would then place the plate over to the other side of the kitchen, where the plate was completed.

I was shown how to make up a fruit plate, the fruit was already sliced and ready, all that was needed was some arranging and adding some berries to spruce it up.

This is our club sandwich on rye, it was usually done on toasted whole wheat bread though, unless a customer requested otherwise.

Ronnia used inserts Then I learned how they make their Caesar Salad,

and it all came together on a plate.

Then I learned how to make their Smoked Chicken Salad, Lobster Rolls, Lobster Cobb Salad.

It was a super fun time, I loved every minute of it, time flew by. It was just an all around good time.

Safe Grads aka Today has been brought to you by the word "Copious"

I do not have as many photos as I would like of this, but Safe Grad took place in the Marriott for a few schools, and we made copious amounts of food. I also worked my first 5:00am shift, which was interesting. That was for a plate up, or breakfast, to feed these kids and send them home. According to our security guard, he was very happy to see them leave, and if we could just slip something into their food, that would be nice.

The pictures that you see here are the desserts they had, Pastry was making copious amounts of treats! (Meaning we got scraps of brownies all day.)

Open Faced Sandwiches

When you usually think of open faced sandwiches, you think of hot sandwiches, turkey and gravy is what came to my mind.

The open faced sandwiches that we did, were just more beautiful versions of our usually sandwiches. Personally I think they would be a pain to try and eat as break food/finger food.

We had (in order of photos):
Smoked salmon deep fried capers and sour cream
Roast Beef with horseradish mayo
Tomato and boccaccini with balsamic vinegar reduction (and a few without boccaccini for the vegans)

Open Faced sandwiches are more of a northern European thing, where they serve them on a plate, and as a meal, or late snack. Usually consisting of healthy meats and spreads. In fact, in most Nordic countries, and open faced sandwich is the "normal" sandwich to them.
North Americans have taken this custom, turned it into turkey and added a layer of gravy.

Pastry Shifts

So far I have been able to do two shifts over in the pastry station. I love working over there.
I got to caramelize the sugar on the creme brulé, portion out cookie dough, so a plate up of the desserts, and help out in general ways.

I even got to decorate cupcakes, old habits die hard! I still can pipe a perfect swirl.

I am hoping to be able to do this on a much more frequent basis. As when I spoke to the head of pastry, she said that any time I am done early, and am still interested in putting in a full day, she will be more than happy to give me a few hours.

Fridge Down

One of our walk-in fridges is down, and has been for 3 days now, this puts extra product in the other fridges, and a tight squeeze and some shuffling around to get to all of the produce.

Fewer bodies, More work.

I was absent from work for one week, due to a family member passing away. Chef was very understanding, as I found out during my lunch break, and when I came back into the kitchen with tears in my eyes, he came up to me, said to leave immediately and I had 7 days off. So I quickly tidied up my station, picked up my knife kit and left. Only after I was back in my apartment did I realize I forgot to punch out, but I figured it would be okay, seeing as all the cooks and Chef was aware that I was leaving.
I hopped a bus that day, and returned to Moncton, NB to be with my family for a week.

When I came back, I found that I had a bit of a curve getting back into things. My body was tired again, just as it was the first week of my internship, and I was forgetting minor details in the kitchen. I quickly was able to jump back into things.

The next day, my trainer, Jen, was due to go on her vacation. So I prepared myself to have a busy week. So far it has not been a disappointment, but also not too over whelming. Jr Sous Chef Dorothy has been helping me out the past two days, and our BEO's tend to run 2 pages long. Together we work away at in, and usually can get a fair bit started on the next day as well.

I am very grateful for my day off though, as I had a lot of sleep that I needed to catch up on.

Kitchen Layout

I have made a few observations about the layout of the kitchen, during the month that I have been working here at the Marriott. (Already been there for one month, hard to believe.)

The keys:
The is my biggest issue, just for the sheer amount of time it wastes. Apparently someone was stealing salmon from the walk-ins, so now they must all be locked, at all times.

Meaning that we need keys to get into the fridges, freezers and dry storage rooms. The only exception is the fridges in the kitchen - I'm assuming this is because someone is around to see food being stolen - though they all have locks to lock up at the end of the day.

I made a little rough map, so you can get an idea of how far away some of our fridges are. Light blue is fridge, dark blue is freezer, lightening bolt is unlocked/located in our kitchen. Purple is the dry storage. My station is the red star, keys are the orange star.

If I want to go get 1 pint of strawberries, I have to go get the keys, than walk to the fridges. While the location of the fridges cannot be changed, the key issue can be. Think of how many time people grab something out of a fridge or freezer, or dry storage. There's 44 North, Banquets, and Pastry all working on one shift. Plus those keys also go to the chemical closet, so our dish pit staff use them as well. If the keys are in their place, it is a fairly quick trip, but if they are not, you have to hunt them down, or wait for them to come back. Hunting them down isn't a possibility, as they could be in any of the fridge locations, while waiting for them makes you feel like you are wasting time.

Logical solutions:
Cameras - People will get caught stealing if they put up cameras in the hallways leading to these fridges. It will also cut down on people going to the fridge to text on their cellphones.

More sets of keys - A set in each department would be fair, or a set for each fridge (though they all use the same key, with dry storage being the only exception.)


Plates/bowls:
It seems that every time I go to plate up dishes, I do not have enough flatware. In this case I have to go upstairs (which is where the banquet rooms are, with a larger dish pit in behind everything) and ask around to try and scrape together more dishes. Or I can look in our dish pit, or steal some from the restaurant. The latter is frowned upon.

Logical Solution:
I always seem to be short under 10 bowls. So a new box of flatware would solve this issue.

(I asked Chef once, and he did find another box, so this was solved for medium sized plates.)

Donald's lessons of "S#!& you don't learn in school"

I learned a quick way to cut up and tear artisan lettuce.

I was setting up my cutting board by the sink, when I noticed Donald, our first cook, sit down on a bucket and observe what I was doing. I didn't think much of it, and set to cutting up my lettuce.
Soon after he came over, grabbed a head of lettuce, and slammed it down on the cutting board. This frightened me, as I have seem him have a fit of anger before, when my fruit cart was in his way (more on this later) and I was afraid I did something to upset him. Until I noticed that the core popped right out of the lettuce, without using a knife. "And since you are not using a knife, your lettuce will not bruise and go rusty as quickly."

(Check out this 20 second video to fully understand)

Later on I was cutting up blue cheese. Before I went to slice the wheel, Donald came by again and pointed out the holes in the bottom of the wheel. These holes went all the way through, and seemed to be the start of all the blue veins. Or should I say green. When you first cut open blue cheese, it isn't blue, but green. It is the oxidation that changes the green to the familiar blue. This is created by needling, which is poking the cheese with holes so that air can be ventilated through, and the mould can be introduced.


While I stood there cutting pineapple, I thought out loud, who eats pineapple, besides humans?

Feedback

Today I had the chance to talk with Sous Chef Chris Profit for 20 some minutes.
He gave me feedback on how I am doing. He said he noticed when I first arrived I was working rather slowly, and that has improved, as well as my caution with knives seems to no longer be slowing down my knife skills.

We talked of all the places he has been, and he spoke of working in Jordan, Africa. He said the resort was huge, and had 8 different outlets.

Worldwide work is now something to think about.

Short Day

Today was a holiday, and also the first day that I was in GM by myself.
There really was not that much to do, in fact there was nothing to do for today at all. So I got started on tomorrow's work. Finished up until the afternoon of tomorrow, and decided to go home.
Put in a solid 3 hours today.

Staff Barbeque

At the Marriott, they do everything in their power to make their staff well welcomed, appreciated and loved. Not just during a certain time, but all the time. I have never felt out of place here, nor have I regretted my choice to switch my internship to this location.

We did up a barbeque for the staff. Chef Trevor had 3 whole pigs brought in, pulled pork was made, and the pigs were cooked in their entirety. 44 North's private room was rented out just for staff, we made tons of food for everyone. Potato salad, tossed salad, three bean salad, we used our leftover fruit platters. Pastry made a wonderful Bailey and cream trifle for dessert. It was to die for.

Starbucks was bought for all the kitchen staff, this is a rather common. Has happened 3 or 4 times since I started working for Marriott.

It's the little things, the thank-yous, that really add up, and make this a happy work environment.

Mother's Day Weekend

For the past few days I have been putting in a lot of hours in the kitchen. We had a huge Mother's Day Buffet to prepare for. Reservations at a little over 300, with walk ins, we believe we served over 400 guests.

There was a lot to prepare, on top of the usual banquets. I will try and remember the order of everything, but the past three days have blended themselves into one large buffet mess.

Jennifer had a few (317 actually...) salads, so we had a plate up. This are always a lot of fun, I love seeing a finished plate come together through the help of many hands. I had the task of grating, by hand, 6 kilos of applewood smoked cheese, and quartering 325 strawberries.

I love applewood cheese, I find it has such a nice flavour, we would be sprinkling this on top of the finished salad. The salad would be topped with 4 strawberries, 3 blackberries and 5 blueberries. All counted, so each plate looked the same. We did 5 plates without cheese, due to allergies.

I also made bruchetta, which turned out fantastic! I was very pleased, since it was my first time making it. I let the roma tomatoes sit in the oil and seasonings over night, and then scooped a bit onto toast points with some hard cheese placed underneath. The cheese was used as a moisture blocker, between the tomatoes and the bread, this ensures the guest is receiving a crunchy snack, even if it's been sitting their all through a meeting. I will have to ask what sort of cheese it was, as I forget, it was similar to Parmesan.

For Mothers' day, we had a lot of work cut out for us. I did not take pictures of everything, as many things I have already made, and therefor already have photos of. We did up trays of smoked salmon, scallops, haddock, cantaloupe, watermelon, grilled red pepper, grilled mushrooms, capers, muscles, and a salad bar complete with bacon and croutons.

I had the task of cooking off the shrimp. This was a lovely time to find out that I am allergic to raw shrimp juice, or the oils on the shells. When I went to load the hotel pans into the steamer, shrimp water ran down my arms, and into my jacket, my hands turned red and my arms got all bumpy. I could feel my stomach start to itch. Donald, the saucier, taught me that rubbing alcohol takes away the itch. Though my hands and arms still look a mess from the reaction.

While helping set up for the buffet, Chef Chris asked if I wanted to take some photos, but guests were already trickling in, so I snapped a few quick ones, but missed pictures of the lovely folks over at the carving stations, the waffle and omelette stations. Here you can see most of our work, as well as the wonderful goodies pastry did up.

They put a lot of work into those treats, and it smelt fantastic.

Last but not least, those lovely little tedious tea sandwiches, each one is about 3 fingers wide and long. Also known as 3 fingers squared. I only remembered to take a photo of the last two, but they were smoked salmon with caper creme frisch on a baguette, cucumber with dill cream cheese on whole wheat and tomatoes and bocconcini with olive pesto on foccacia bread.

I learned how to make olive pesto, and I am in love with it. I am going to try and find several uses for it, so I have an excuse to make it and eat it at home.

(Not) Overwhelmed, Swamped, Smothered, Crushed, Distressed

Jennifer seems to think I can be easily overwhelmed.
She keeps asking me if I can handle it. Honestly, this is a walk in the park compared to wedding season at the Cake Box. I really miss the stress, and hope that things pick up here soon enough. Sure we get a full day of work, but I want deadlines, and hoops I need to jump through.

Today started with this.
This is a cart full of all the fruit needed for today. That is 12 cantaloupe, 12 pineapples, 12 honeydew and 3 watermelon, because that's all that were in storage. As well as 2 flats of strawberries, 2 flats of blueberries and a flat of blackberries.
This took me til lunch time to complete, but I was impressed with how much quicker I am getting at slicing up fruit.

During the morning, one of the girls from Starbucks came downstairs with some samples of Mocha Coconut Frappuccino. Best thing I have ever tasted, I went and bought one on my break. Honestly, if you love the taste of toasted coconut, go buy one now.

This seemed to end the morning trend of gloominess, our Banquet Chef was in a bad mood this morning (everyone was saying it was due to his low blood sugar levels), and it quickly became contagious.

The rest of the day was broken down into smaller tasks. I had 3 smoked salmon plates to do, Club Lounge was already done, so I didn't have to cut up any more fruit, but I did have to do up a skewer tray for them, which is cherry tomatoes wrapped in thinly sliced salami. I learned how to do a cereal station today which is just setting up a bowl of raisins, granola and banana chips, for guests to sprinkle over their cereal, if desired.

Today I made croutons. They were so good, loved them couldn't stop munching on them while I was putting them away. (And I noticed staff that passed by grabbed one as well.) I was very impressed with myself. First time I ever made them! Also made baguette sticks, and french bread rounds with the same herb blend as the croutons.

Worked some over time today, was supposed to go to pastry department for a bit, but we were still behind in Garde Manger, so Dylan went over instead of me. I was looking forward to learning a bit about a new department, so I was a bit disappointed.

Today I tried: Beef Bacon, honestly it wasn't that bad, almost prefer it over regular pork bacon. It was heavier, but still very salted. Apparently it was a leaner choice to pork.
Cucumber sandwiches with pickle juice cream cheese.

Here's to hoping tomorrow contains some entertaining stress!

I Have Lovely Melons

Yesterday was the day of fruit.

I had a rather large order or fruit trays to slice up, or rather, 6 small orders. I needed 9 trays each of watermelon, honey dew, cantaloupe, pineapple and berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries).

I surprised myself and how quicker I got at peeling and cutting up these fruits. I was done everything in 5 hours. Still a lot longer than I want to take, but slowly getting better.

I have this tendency to sing Berries & Cream while I'm bowling up the berries, so I hummed away at that while slicing up my strawberries, and layering on the blueberries and blackberries.


The atmosphere in the kitchen was a little tense, an order for berries weren't done, pastry thought it was just berries, and therefore it was on our list of to-do, we thought it had granola in it, and therefore it was an order of parfaits, which is then placed on pastry's to-do list. After that was all sorted out, it was realized it was our task, and was quickly done.
Early in the morning a service staff came to pick up an order, that wasn't due 'til tomorrow, and almost took off with it before anyone noticed. More words were exchanged, and we all realized what a foul mood everyone was in.

After I was done with the fruit, Jennifer went for her lunch break, and I was left to do a vegetable platter, which was not hard at all, bowl up some nachos and dip, which I laughed because we use the same ones as we did at the movie theatre, and slice up some tomatoes. To slice to tomatoes, all I had to do was remove the core and slice them with this gadget Jennifer had at her station, with it I was able to slice up a whole box in under 20 minutes.

When Jennifer came back, she showed me how to do up meat skewers and we tidied up and went home for the day.

Longest and Best Day Yet

This morning started off a bit rough. I woke up plenty early, was ahead of schedule and decided to head to work a few minutes early for I could grab a bowl of cereal there, since it's free. Well I got about 10 minutes into my 25 minute walk, and realized my swipe card wasn't in my pocket where I thought I had put it this morning. I had already forgotten the card once, and we only get 3 chances before we get written up, so I ran home, to look for it. I tore apart my room, and could not find it. It was now 7:00 and I had to be in the kitchen, dressed, by 7:30. So I took off without the card, and ran to work. I got someone else to let me into the building, and ordered a new card from HR.

When I entered the kitchen, on time might I add, I noticed a beeping sound. This was the carbon monoxide detector. They didn't know if it was malfunctioning or actually going off, but we all had our work to do, so the engineers were called down and everyone went back to work.

Matt was in today, so there were three of us to work in Garde Manger, and thank goodness he was in, as we had a busy day ahead of us.

I got started on salads, I made the same salad as I did the first day I was in. The cherry tomato, green onion and grilled lemon. This time I made sure to remove all the seeds before I went to grill the lemon, as it is a lot harder to remove hot seeds from a hot lemon.

Afterwards I began to set up for a build your own sandwich bar. I plated up some rye bread, whole wheat bread and sourdough for the bread choices. I had a lot of left over cut up vegetables from the day before, all I had to do was slice up a few cucumbers. I pulled out the Mandolin and was shown how to set it up, and sliced away. I love the mandolin, it makes this job so much easier and quicker.
I also needed to bowl up some gherkins and dill pickles. After a long trip to dry storage, which is a few hallways away, I searched and searched and couldn't find the dill pickles. I went to F1, one of the walk-in fridges, where they should be stored. Here I was told that there were none, and the order for them would be in tomorrow.

I wandered over to 44 North's kitchen, where Pat pointed me towards a bucket of dill pickles. They weren't pre-sliced, but at this point I could care less. I sliced them up, bowled them up, and with that I was finished that order.

At this point I looked over to see what Jennifer was up to. She was rolling goat cheese into small balls, and then rolling them in toasted mixed nuts. I tried one and they were surprisingly, amazingly delicious.

When we came in this morning, we had to quickly bowl up 24 apples, 24 bananas and 24 oranges for the staff. HR was delivering healthy snacks to everyone throughout the day. This is my stash, veggie chips and Oreo thin-sations. They also had granola bars, the fruit, fruit-to-go snacks, and many 100 calorie treat bags.

Next on the list was a mix plate of grilled veggies. So I set off to grill up my vegetables.I was just grilling away, having the time of my life when Chef Brian came over, and I noticed the whole room was smoky. The marinade from the portabello mushrooms, was flammable, so when I saw flames, I didn't worry, but I had forgotten to turn of the vents. Oops. I finished the grilling up, now with the vents on, and a good chuckle shared between Chef Brian and I. Turns out I was too short to reach the vent switch anyways.

In the middle of my grilling, I was pulled away, as we were doing a plate up. This is when most of the current kitchen staff gathers around a conveyor belt, and we do up plates. Each task is broken down so it can run by quickly. For example, my task was sprinkling roasted almonds onto steamed beans. These plates were going up to a banquet, the difference between this and previous banquet orders, is that it's a sit down, as opposed to guests serving themselves.

I put the grilled veg into the oven for a bit, let them roast, and then cut them up into rather large batonnettes and trayed them. Must say, the mushrooms were very delicious. These will be served cold, which confuses me a bit. I wouldn't enjoy eating a soft roasted vegetable, unless it was warm, or hot. Cold, it just seems like a forgotten leftover.

These mushrooms were also delicious, and I was very proud of myself for making them. They were marinated in balsamic vinegar, which I love to death, so they tasted divine. (This is saying a lot since I HATE cooked mushrooms.)

I also made sandwiches today :)
Turkey with cranberry mayo and mozarella.
Ham with Dijon mustard and swiss.
Tuna salad, that I made myself. (I still strongly dislike the smell of tuna.)
I really enjoyed making the sandwiches, they were fairly easy to make, and once I got a system going, I'm sure I could bang out a bunch of them in no time at all. Just like making suppers with Gramp, all I need is a system and everything will run smoothly. All in all I think I am getting the hang of things, although so far nothing is at all too challenging to have to worry about being thrown under the bus. I know I ask a lot of questions, but for the most part I'm just double checking, confirming that what I know is right, is actually right. Also I'm finding that things I was taught in school, don't apply here, as they have their own way that they want to do something.

All in all it was a long day, I worked 11 hours today, on my feet, and it is bed time, for sure. At the end of the day, Chef gave us cab coupons, so we could take the cab home. Very rewarding; after working all day, I was dreading the walk home... uphill.